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Aaron Karjala (right), the former Chief Information Officer for the Cover Oregon health insurance exchange, has received a $70,000 contract with the exchange after resigning under pressure. He will assist the state's potential litigation against Oracle Corp.
(The Associated Press)

Cover Oregon has given a $70,000 contract to Aaron Karjala, the health insurance exchange's former top technology official, to assist with litigation against Oracle Corp.

Clyde Hamstreet, formerly the exchange's acting executive director, signed the contract with Karjala June 3, less than three months after Gov. John Kitzhaber publicly called for his firing.

Oregon is exploring a lawsuit against Oracle over state officials' complaints that the exchange's main technology vendor delivered shoddy work and didn't keep promises. The California software giant has blamed the state for failing to hire another contractor, called a systems integrator, to oversee its work.

The contract calls for Karjala to be paid $160 an hour to provide information to the exchange as well as the Oregon Department of Justice or its hired litigators about the history of the exchange project. He hasn't yet done any work on the contract, exchange officials say. The contract was obtained under Oregon's public records law.

In March, the governor announced the resignation of Bruce Goldberg, then the exchange's interim director, and publicly called for the exchange board to fire Karjala as well as the exchange's Chief Operating Officer, Triz delaRosa. Kitzhaber said each of the three bore some responsibility for the project's failure.

Rules adopted at the recommendation of Kitzhaber's office did not allow the Cover Oregon board to fire Karjala and delaRosa. Karjala resigned in late March and DelaRosa submitted her resignation in April after sending the state a lawsuit threat that led to a $67,000 settlement.

Karjala did not respond to requests for comment. His online linkedin profile lists his current job as project manager for Cognosante, LLC, one of the technology contractors on the exchange project.

Before taking his Cover Oregon job, Karjala held the #2 tech job for the Oregon Health Authority. He'd applied to fill an opening for the agency's top chief information officer job, only to lose out to California import Carolyn Lawson, who was tasked by Goldberg with producing a working exchange.

Lawson was asked to resign over the exchange fiasco in December, and in March sent the state a lawsuit threat saying she was wrongly blamed for the mess.

The relationship between Karjala and Lawson was strained, especially after Cover Oregon had to take over the project prematurely last May. Exchange officials realized they'd inherited major problems, documents show.

Last October, Tom Jovick, a top aide to the exchange's then-leader, Rocky King, said in an e-mail to King that Karjala may not have forwarded a consultant's advice to take a hard line against Oracle, because he didn't want to look weak.

"I don't think he's necessarily weak, but I do think Oracle has pretty much ignored his authority as the IT boss, much like Carolyn did," Jovick wrote.